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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24641263">A second too late</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talesmaniac89/pseuds/Talesmaniac89'>Talesmaniac89</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Dean Winchester Angst, F/M, Heartbreak, Hurt Dean Winchester, Jealousy, POV Third Person Limited, Reader-Insert, Sad Dean Winchester, Unrequited Love, alcohol consumption, no happy ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:56:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,977</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24641263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talesmaniac89/pseuds/Talesmaniac89</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As with everything else in his life, Dean realises just a little too late that he loves you, just when you’re lost to him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A second too late</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean Winchester was always just a split second too late. </p><p>It was the broken, scratched and beaten record of his life. Always one step behind whatever hellish creative torture the world decided to drop on his shoulders next. </p><p>Too late to stop Sammy from getting hurt. Too late to stop his friends from dying. Too late to save the next victim of whatever monster they’d rushed out to kill… Too late to love you.</p><p>Sitting numbly in the chair next to yours, Dean could barely hear your words through the white noise in his head. Lost in thought of years spent pretending you were just his best friend. Years spend tricking himself into believing his heart didn’t beat faster whenever you walked into the room. He’d been stifling his feelings for you, until he himself didn’t even know about them, for <em>fucking years</em>, and he still managed to be that damned split second too late. </p><p>Next to him, you were talking about your new boyfriend, though he couldn’t make himself listen to your words. Charles something-or-other had dropped in from nowhere; tearing Dean’s heart out of his chest and grinding it to dust just as he realised how he actually felt about you. Sure, maybe he wouldn’t have realised, if it wasn’t for your plans with a man that wasn’t him. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. </p><p>You were his best friend, you were the reason he kept fighting, the straight and narrow path that kept him <em>good</em>, you were everything to Dean Winchester. Yet, to you he was only a hunting buddy and occasional confidante on dark nights when you couldn’t shake off the shadows of the latest hunt… Or, like it was that night, someone he could share good news with. Though to Dean it sounded more like you were reading his obituary.</p><p>“So, I’ll be out of the bunker… Hey, Dean?” </p><p>His name on your lips was the wakeup call he needed to push himself out of the white noise in his own mind. Damn it, he’d never noticed how much he liked the way you said his name. Another example of how he’d always be just that second too late. </p><p>All these missing seconds were adding up; stealing years of his life that could have been spent being more, <em>better</em>. Lost years that could have been spent saving people, hunting things… Loving you.</p><p>“What’s up?” </p><p>His fist curled by his side as he watched the small furrow in your brow that followed the question. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and smooth it down. If nothing else, just to touch you, feel that you were still there. With him. Though he’d already lost you to another man. Instead he busied the hand that wanted to trace your features with the glass in front of him.</p><p>Chuckling wryly to himself, he drowned the slightly harsh laugh in his tumbler glass when he realised he couldn’t honestly tell you what had been on his mind. He loved you. And, even before he realised that simple little fact, you were still his best friend; he always wanted to share every little thing with you. </p><p>Yet, there was no way he could tell you, straight-faced, that he had been lost in thought. Overwhelmed by how much you meant to him. How much he loved you. How it’d struck him, out of the blue, like a lightning bolt. Only to keep striking every time you as much as looked at him, keep burning through his body like he was a goddamn lightning rod. </p><p>Not when he’d loved you for an eternity, yet lost you in a second.</p><p>“It’s nothing,” Was all Dean managed to say, not wanting to be the one that brought back up the topic that was currently breaking his heart. Damn it, looking over at you, (Y/E/C) eyes filled to the brim with questions, it was so <em>obvious</em>. He had to be blind not to notice. </p><p>He could feel it with every nerve in his body. How his lips looked for any excuse to say your name, just to taste it. By the way his heart soared with one smile from you, sending him tumbling into a dizzy vertigo that left him gasping for breath. It had <em>always</em> been you.</p><p>Dean finally understood why people called it <em>falling</em> in love. </p><p>There was nothing gentle about the feelings raging through the hunter. He wasn’t gently and carefully floating into it or getting wrapped in cotton comfort. He wasn’t able to control it; to stop it, change the direction his heart had taken, or pull himself up and out.</p><p>No, Dean was falling. </p><p>Head first. Fast and hard. Without a lifeline. </p><p>Doomed to keep plummeting until he crashed and burned at the bottom of a bottle. Bruised and battered at the edge of his bed with only the cold shadows as his company. Bandaging a broken heart in cold, false indifference by turning to the old reliable art of denial. A hunter’s favourite weapon. Pushing the pieces of his broken heart into a box under lock and key. Burying ‘em 6 feet deep and under enough bodies and dark humour to make the world forget he ever even <em>had</em> a heart. </p><p>Still. He couldn’t stop falling, not until the inevitable collision with reality shattered him into a million tiny pieces of heartbreak at your feet. Not when his mind was screaming the words at him. Not when his whole body was suddenly so painfully aware of you next to him. He figured it out just a second too late, but there was a lifetime lost in everything he felt for you. </p><p>
  <em>Everything.</em>
</p><p>That was the only word that mattered to Dean now. If he could, he would give you everything. He wanted you to have everything. You were everything. He <em>wanted</em> your everything. </p><p>Your (Y/E/C) eyes, your laugh, your soft hair, your voice, your hands, your funny faces, your jokes, your stupidly adorable taste in movies. The way you said his name. Hell, the way you said anything really. The way your mind worked. The way you hummed out of tune to his songs in the car. Dean loved <em>everything </em>about you.</p><p>It was the only word that made any sense anymore. You were everything to him.</p><p>Taking another generous sip of the whiskey to wash away the bitter realisation that by losing you, he’d lost everything, Dean finally lifted his head to meet your eyes. Unable to keep himself away now that his heart had caught up to his stubborn mind. </p><p>Somehow, even though you were right by his side, he was still missing you unless his eyes focused on you. </p><p>Glancing at you from the corner of his eye, Dean marvelled at the fact that he ever managed to look straight at you. You were blindingly bright, breath-taking… Looking at you directly would leave him tongue-tied and breathless. You were… </p><p>Hell, Dean had never been good at finding the right words. And either way you were too beautiful for a few measly letters strung together.</p><p>Of course some other man, a <em>better</em> man, had seen you and fallen for you. If it was you, then even heaven itself would fall to its knees in worship. Yet, where he was left in the endless fall, your new boyfriend was floating, together with you. Weightless and far above the darkness that surrounded one Dean Winchester. </p><p>No. He needed to stop the slow-motion car crash that was his mind. Focus back on you. If nothing else, as your best friend. And to hear your voice, let it soothe him. Even if the topic was one he’d rather not touch.</p><p>“So, what time…” He couldn’t force the words out, as they burned like acid in his throat. Leaving the question unfinished and letting you deal with how you wanted to answer him. </p><p>“Tomorrow? At around 6pm I think,” You said with a noncommittal shrug. Unaware how every one of your words were a sentencing and execution all at once. With Dean at the gallows; a soldier sentenced to death by heartbreak for being just that little bit too late.</p><p>He shouldn’t have asked. But if there was one thing Dean had learned about himself over the years it was that he was, apparently, a sucker for punishment. </p><p>Finishing his whiskey in one go, he put the empty tumbler glass back on the table with a soft thud. Yet he was unable to remove his hand from it to reach for the bottle straight away. Afraid that if he did he’d either reach out to push your (Y/H/C) hair behind your ear or run away from it all unless he anchored himself to the table. No, Dean never ran away; not from the burdens he was forced to carry, not from the monsters he had to fight to protect the world, and definitely not from you. </p><p>“Do you want another…” Dean started, unable to continue talking about your… About tomorrow. Yet still not wanting the night to end. Wishing for at least another few seconds to bask in something that was already lost to him. </p><p>“I shouldn’t, it’s late… And I have a long day tomorrow,” You sighed, casting a joking gaze of longing towards the whiskey bottle before getting up with a stretch. A long day getting ready for <em>him</em>. Dean’s shaky hand reached out for the whiskey bottle you’d just rewarded with a look he’d kill for. Serving himself up a double; a necessary sacrifice from the amber liquid to his breaking heart.</p><p>Your eyes were lost to him as you stood by his side for a second, emptying the last drops of golden whiskey out of your own glass. A glass Dean envied more and more with every broken beat of his heart.</p><p>He wished you’d just reach out. Place a hand on his shoulder. A soft pat of informal friendship to say goodnight. Even if it was just for a second. Just so he could feel that there was a bond between you. That there was a single moment, a small gesture, that was only his. Just so he could feel your warmth, without it burning his fingertips with a touch he could never give you himself. Afraid that if he did, you’d know. That his feelings would transfer, from his fingers to your heart, and you’d never look at him the same way again.</p><p>“Ah alright,” Dean said, more to the glass than you as you slowly gathered up your things from the library table. A small smile on your lips, already shaping happy dreams around your plans for tomorrow. Though to Dean, it felt like the sun would never rise again. </p><p>His stomach lurched with dirty, possessive feelings at the thought of you laughing and smiling with another man. Because he wanted to be the reason for your smile. Just like you were his reason for everything. </p><p><em>‘Don’t go’</em>, he thought as he drowned the acrid possessive thoughts in a sip of whiskey. Though he knew he could never say the words out loud. Loving Dean Winchester was a burden he could never force you to carry. Instead the words stuck in his throat, caught on the broken shards of his heart.</p><p><em>‘Stay with me’,</em> he pleaded silently, more to the bottle than you. Biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood to keep the many words in. Damn it, it was so loud inside his head with all the things he wanted to confess to you; to his best friend. </p><p>“Good night,” Dean whispered instead. </p><p>Camouflaging his belated confession of love behind wishes of sweet dreams. Because if he let the words slip he would fall even further, and though heights never scared him, the thought of falling for you did.</p><p> </p>
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